Hour 1- November 6, Corey Williams

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on
Fox Sports fourteen fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services in
sure your most prized possessions.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
But good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Eye on the Ball
here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Riverta and
today with me is my second Thursday.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Guy, Jay John, how are we doing today?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
We didn't get fired to your back, we didn't get
fired another about you.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Good to have you back.

Speaker 4 (00:32):
I'm glad to be back. Yes, thank you.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
You must be born at home. That's what it is.

Speaker 4 (00:36):
You know. It's fun. It's fun being back home and
talking about sports.

Speaker 5 (00:40):
And a lot of it has been you know, sports too,
so I've been a part of my life.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
So yeah, it's fun. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
And we got Ray behind the control, so we should
be set for today and an interesting show today. We
got Corey Williams here at the first hour, three fifteen,
three seventeen. We'll talk a little about the weekends games,
what's coming up?

Speaker 3 (00:59):
And you were when did you get here?

Speaker 4 (01:02):
I got here in ninety eight, ninety.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Eight, okay, so a little after he had come and gone, right,
and we'll talk about this and I think this may
have happened with you here and then you got to
when what time did you leave?

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Two two thousand and two.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Okay, So in nineteen ninety five, ninety six, Corey and
the guys JB. Reggie, these guys were all seniors, right,
they had a slew of seniors, and they were unranked
to begin the season after being ranked number one the
previous season with Jamon's senior year. After they had gotten
to the final four to ninety four, and then they

(01:37):
won surprisingly if that's the right word, to the nation,
because they won the NIT. You know, loot was always
good in November, right, they get in the top five.
I think it was a beat three top teams, even Georgetown.
I think it was in the finals. And now, all
of a sudden, you're going from nowhere to somewhere. And
I'm gonna ask him, how difficult is that? Because now

(01:58):
you've you got no expectations or little and then all
of a sudden, in a matter of two weeks, you
got a lot of expectations.

Speaker 4 (02:06):
It's funny how that can happen.

Speaker 5 (02:08):
And the one thing I will say about Arizona basketball
and just the culture that had been built up to
it because of that there in the Final four ninety
four and everything. And before when I got here in
ninety eight ninety ninety nine, you know, the team had
just come through the National Championship in the Elite eight
and really there was only a j and Kerry and

(02:32):
a bunch of freshmen, and you know, we got off
to a good start and got in the tournament and
then you know, one oh two, we lost everybody except
for Jason Gardner, Luke and Ricky from the Final four team,
and we did exactly what you just said there is
you went to the preseason ninety and won the prize
in NAT and went to Texas and you know, here
we go. But it just seemed that's what happened with

(02:53):
Coach O and Arizona basketball.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, there was something special about that because because you know,
you had just practiced and anything. Back then, you only
had a certain window where you started right mid October,
mid September or whatever. You got a couple of hours
with the guys or whatever. You you know the rules
better than me. But by November tenth or whatever it was,
these dudes were already rolling well.

Speaker 4 (03:14):
Coach had a.

Speaker 5 (03:14):
Really good way of putting teams together, and that's that's
not it. That's very underrated skill, not talked about enough
because the expectations are set by people typically from the outside.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
You'll take a look at stats.

Speaker 5 (03:28):
Not everybody knows who all the incoming people are, YadA, YadA.

Speaker 4 (03:32):
And then but Coach found a way to just put
you together. You know.

Speaker 5 (03:36):
I can remember one time early in two thousand and one,
Channing Fry's out shooting. He's out there asking for the
ball twenty feet from the basket, and Coach puts Jason
Gardner and will bind him down on the box and says, now, you.

Speaker 4 (03:49):
Tell me how this looks. I've heard that story, you know.

Speaker 5 (03:51):
And so it's like, you know, you got to play there,
and I've heard that story.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
And then eventually Channie gets to play on the outside
when he becomes a pro bo. Yeah, no, no, I've
heard that story, because it's funny. Where do you think
you're shot? In a better fie? I can't do the
lute thing. But that's exactly what he did.

Speaker 5 (04:09):
H a simple, simplistic way of just reminding you we
have all have roles and all have places, and you
down there.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
He was one of the other things that he was
good at and we'll know, I'm kind of transitioned to
what Tommy does. And I'm not sure if it was
difficult for you or you were able to pull this off.
But he didn't always chase after the five stars, right.
He went after players that fit his system and fit
his puzzle of a team.

Speaker 5 (04:34):
Well, however the fit goes, there was to read the
coach had about who you were.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
Day to day, you know, and and and.

Speaker 5 (04:43):
Just how he watched the kid play in the summer,
because that's really what you had. And sometime during seasons
is he could just see, you know, what that character fits,
you know, and and when we recruit other kids, he said,
that's not necessarily that personality doesn't seem to work well
for me. Yeah, you know, and uh but again we've
all been there in terms of recruiting, and many times

(05:05):
you think as a coach, well, you know, my impact,
I can change it now, ego thing, you know, you
can do that. But you know, then you and I've
said many times, I mean we had such the kids
that we had were all good, good from good family
bases and stuff like that, so that were kind of
balanced off the floor. Basketball wasn't their full life, so
they just kind of.

Speaker 4 (05:26):
I don't know. It all worked and coach was great
at it.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
So two thousand and three was your last year.

Speaker 4 (05:31):
Two thousand and one two two.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Okay, So the year later of that team, I think
is with Ricky, Ricky and Luke and those groups, they
finished in the top twenty five more than anybody else
in the history of Arizona foot basketball, which would be
a surprise because Luke and Ricky and Andre and Hassan
and those guys. So they uh and it was a

(05:53):
fantastic year. They lost to lost of Kansas and the.

Speaker 5 (05:56):
Big Kansas in the regular season and then ended up
losing to go to the funnel, right.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
They beat Notre Dame in lost to Kansas.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
But my transition was, I think Tommy has that in
him where his his guys you know, are big, big
time players. Now he's going after big time players, but
they fit his system.

Speaker 4 (06:11):
They fit I would agree with you.

Speaker 5 (06:14):
I think, you know, and that's not not distant Spokane
at all. But you also have to have a certain
kind of kid to fit in in Spokane in a
you know, a smaller area, smaller it's a smaller city
type thing, and the weather really does think over there
and so you've got to find guys that fit, and
they did and you know not to be you know,

(06:36):
Tommy's been around championship teams.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
No, you're saying that he has experience of doing it
up there, well that he had to.

Speaker 5 (06:42):
Yes, and by putting kids, yes, and you kept going
to the to the tournament. The experience that you get
by being a part of the tournament the year after
year after year, you see who you can get a
gauge sometimes on kids. He's going to keep getting better.
He's not going to shy away from that, you know.
And you know they do play more basketball overseas than here,

(07:02):
so some of that combination of who can fit in
America you learn that too, and he's been pretty good
with that.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah, no question.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
Did you was Yvonne Radinovich here when you coached?

Speaker 4 (07:15):
I think a coach might have coached against him, or
maybe I was out of.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Coach because they're great, They're very good players, are fundamentally sound.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
Yahyada.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
He has a couple of other ones now with Yvonne
now just kind of playing beyond his years. But guess what,
he's been playing basketball a long time.

Speaker 5 (07:31):
Well, I've always said in people in coaching. No, it's
some things are changing in America now. But the kids
in the kids in foreign countries, largely specifically the of Europe,
they always got coached by the best coaches all the
way up. You know, they'll find your talent at twelve,
eleven and twelve, and you're getting coached by the best coaches.
And a lot of times that doesn't necessarily happen for
kids in the United States until maybe they get advanced

(07:53):
in high school or college. Now you're starting to see
more prep schools where kids are going because if you
don't practice it against good players all the time, you
can get complacent. Yeah, the prep school growth of the
prep schools in the US is helping that, which is
what those kids get in a foreign country.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
That's a great observation. Where were you in nineteen ninety
one ninety two?

Speaker 5 (08:14):
I was about the university, but as an assistant under
as an assistant under Berry Callier.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
Very call you Okay. So there was a seminar some
point in Phoenix. Maybe he was Loot and Huggins promoting
the game that was coming up with the seven up
shootout whatever it was, blah blah blah, and the big
deal was you know, the foreign coaches. I think he
had just come back from from Europe coaching in the
summer Nike stuff. And one of the obnoxious questions were

(08:40):
one of the simple questions I asked him was about
foreign or international players becoming better, better and eventually coming
here and maybe kind of taking over.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
That was nineteen ninety one.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
It took a while, but he said, Steve, this is
what's going to happen because not guys like him, but
guys like him were out there coaching these kids.

Speaker 5 (08:56):
Well, again, you know, I'm old enough to remember the
wisdom quote unquote that I received from the older guys
in the neighborhood. Okay, and so and so you always
had a big brother type thing, even if you didn't
have a big brother.

Speaker 4 (09:11):
You know, now many times the kids are everything.

Speaker 5 (09:14):
Scripted for how they play basketball, where you just kind
of so in other countries, you know, if you're very good,
you know, if you're a very good fifteen year old,
you know, we're going to play with the eighteen year olds. Yeah,
Nicola Jokis, I mean that's it. He's he was big,
he played, he played with all the people, So you
grow quicker. Yeah, and and and that's not We're in
our scholastic system.

Speaker 4 (09:34):
You don't necessarily get that.

Speaker 3 (09:35):
Right, No, no question.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
I've said this a number of times and Raise had
probably delta in his world of sports.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
You did you play tennis or something?

Speaker 4 (09:42):
You played?

Speaker 3 (09:43):
What you played? Basketball?

Speaker 4 (09:44):
I played football, basketball and baseball.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
But I'm sure when you played basketball, when you got
your your ass kicked, it helped you get better.

Speaker 6 (09:54):
You know.

Speaker 5 (09:55):
Humility is a wonderful thing as an athlete, you know,
because you you it's gonna happen, and if it doesn't happen,
you're not living in a real world. And there's sometimes
you should go home and say that's stunk. I stunk today,
you know, and who are you then the next day?
And I think that's those are the things that that
hone a good competitor. The more you get a little

(10:17):
beat up every now and then, very same thing for.

Speaker 7 (10:18):
You, right, yeah, I'd say so, especially like right after
a loss or like a bad you know, you have
a bad tournament, and wrestling it.

Speaker 4 (10:25):
Lights that fire under you, you know what I mean.

Speaker 7 (10:27):
And it's like those that next week of practice, it's
like you don't have to be told to go harder
because it's like you're angry already, know that, right.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Well, one of the things I saw when when Cooper
Flag made his debut and you hear it all the time,
but just I heard it again with Flag's mom telling
him if you're the best player in the room, you're
not in the right room because because you need to
get better, Right, what's the point of being the best
guy in the room. You need to get beat up
over here to get better.

Speaker 5 (10:54):
Well, that's again, it's one of the things in recruiting
that you're always trying to take a look at it.
And I'm not going to name names, but there are
certain places where kids were from and you're like, they
don't practice hard enough because there's not enough good players.
They may line up for jump ball and only five
times throughout the course of a year, they may know,
they may know that they might lose because the other

(11:15):
games are just gonna walk out there and we're just
gonna play.

Speaker 4 (11:17):
We're gonna beat you.

Speaker 5 (11:18):
And so when you get to certain places where it's
very competitive game in game out, you're like you get
honed as a kid, as a teenagers, like I can't
take this playoff. You know, these guys are all good.
So you're now you're more you're more focused, and you're
going to get a better effort early in games instead
of a lackluster will turn it on when we want to.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
Let me say this because I've asked this question a
number of times and this is my first time with
you asking this question. So the importance of coaches in
my world, I think coaches matter. Coaches matter, and you
have be good. But players who wins more games? The
players or the coaches.

Speaker 4 (11:53):
Well, players win more games. Okay, I think you know.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
But you've seen very good teams with horrible coaches.

Speaker 4 (11:59):
Well you have.

Speaker 5 (12:00):
And what I'm saying is over time, you know you
can want you know, sometimes it's more evident in football
because the game doesn't go as fast. But there's you know,
it's the SEC game a couple of weeks ago, Mississippi
State and Alabama, and in Mississippi State's winning the whole game,
and you can just see if you don't make this
one play, you know, Alabama's going to get the ball back,
They're going to come down and score. It's going to
go over time, and now you can you can write

(12:21):
the script. So sometimes you know the best players, you
know come through, come through, you know if they've been coached.

Speaker 4 (12:28):
Well, so I think it's coaches.

Speaker 5 (12:31):
You know, you have a bigger play sheet, you know,
with better with better players. I've been on something. Sure,
you know benches where you're looking to go what do
we call?

Speaker 3 (12:40):
You were a better coach at you of A because
you had these guys.

Speaker 5 (12:43):
Right, I will always better recruiter because when I had
the big A on my chest versus the VIRS, versus
the O s U, I got all kinds of looks
on that AD had to work hard for those looks
in the OSU.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
Let me tell you Butler made it to back to
back final fours, right, Yeah, Their players were not so such.
They were good players, right, but they weren't Arizona players.
They weren't duke players.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
They weren't. But they had a pretty good coach.

Speaker 5 (13:08):
They had a very good coach. And one thing I
will say is something that I'm not knocking. I'm not
knocking what happened, but I will say this, having been
in Indiana coaching for eight years, there was a window
of time there at at Indiana University where they got
an n c A trouble right after right in that
time and some of those kids, I just know the
state of Indiana. They would have gone to IU, but

(13:29):
when they were in trouble, you know, it's they end
up going to a good coach and they end up
going to Butler and Brad did everything that you possibly
could have done with them and get them all the
way to the championship game, not that you wouldn't have.

Speaker 4 (13:44):
You know.

Speaker 5 (13:44):
Then they get you know, Tom Craig comes in, settle
things down, and IU and those big kids are.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, of course, because you dream of doing growing up
and going to Indiana. Okay, we got to go right.
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Streaming live on the iHeartRadio app. This is I on
the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox Sports fourteen fifty eight.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
Hey, welcome back to one on the Ball here at
Fox Sports fourteen fifty I'm Steve Rivera, and today with
me is Jay John former you the assistive basketball coach.
Now on the phone, we have Corey Williams former you
a basketball stall. Are you doing, Corey?

Speaker 3 (19:02):
Were not much?

Speaker 2 (19:04):
I'm gonna I'm gonna throw something about you real quick,
because I just found that something out, uh about twenty
minutes ago when Jake came in. Uh he threw a
nice little compliment, A you you were. Tell me the
story again.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
You were? You were a Butler.

Speaker 5 (19:17):
So I'm a I mean, I'm an assistant coach at
Butler at the time, and we're you know, getting there,
getting their feet underneath this there and they're starting to
learn the area and recruit and so we had already
recruited a player from Saint Charles High School up near Batavia,
and so it's like, okay, we got somebody from up there,
and you know, we're gonna go up and recruit again.

(19:37):
And so I was recruiting a kid that you might
have probably played with that Batavia Lamar Justice, and yeah
and uh and were you guys the same year?

Speaker 6 (19:48):
Mars was one year ahead of me.

Speaker 5 (19:50):
Okay, that makes sense because I was saying to myself,
as I was saying to Steve, it's like, you know,
I remember looking at this young man, going, well, he's
a good player too. And so when you didn't really
could as much, you know, as early, right, you kind
of did. People did stuff this summer before the senior year.
And so but we tried to recruit Lamar and he
obviously he was going to Notre Dame. But I remember

(20:10):
Corey and wrote to notes down and went back and
I got back to Butler, I go, naw, he's going
to be too good, So.

Speaker 4 (20:18):
You're gonna gonna go Hi.

Speaker 6 (20:25):
So it's interesting story there. Digger Fels was coming to
watch me play at open gym at Notre Dame and
Lamar was a state triple jump champion, and you know,
we were used to playing with him, but he got
a steal. He took one dribble from half court, planted
his foot at the three throw line, rocked it two times,

(20:46):
and dumped it with two hands. And we had seen
him do this a million times and Digger Felps looked
at my high school coach was like, who the hell
is that? And that's how Lamar ended up with Notre Dame.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
Uh, did you have a good career The name doesn't strike.

Speaker 6 (21:01):
Yeah, well they had, They had some good players, but
he got caught in a log jam. He played a
lot of his junior and senior year, but it was
it was tough sledding for far As at Notre Dame,
but he ended up being a head couple players.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Yeah, okay, well we always see these things from Cory
when you post.

Speaker 3 (21:15):
So if it wasn't Butler, it was Arizona and who else?

Speaker 6 (21:20):
Oh Man Duke was number one, Arizona was two. Then
it was Syracuse, Michigan and Kentucky. That was that was
the five And yeah, it was back in the day
where I wanted UNLV, but it was just kind of
like they kind of backed off towards the end. I
was a huge UNLV fan as a kid, but yeah,
those were the Big five.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
You know.

Speaker 5 (21:41):
It's funny and I hear that because the first thing
comes to mind is like, not too far away from
Nick Anderson in the eighty nine final four or eighty
eight final four, whatever it was. And you don't say Illinois.
I mean what, I'm just curious what kind of happened
there from Illinois kids.

Speaker 6 (21:57):
So it was really weird. You know. Back then, I
remember wanted to blaze my own path. And you know
Billy Taylor, who played at Western War, he went to
Notre Dame Kenny Battle from a War, which was literally
five minutes up the street. He went to Illinois and
part of the flying A line. I so coming up
like I didn't really want to walk in anybody else's footsteps.

(22:18):
And my coach, he was really really pushing Kentucky because
he just loved Kentucky from back in the you know,
the days of their glory. So everywhere that people tried
to push me, I just resisted because I wanted to
do my own thing. And Arizona, I tell you, I
came out on my campus visit in October, the sunshine
and palm trees and you know, I'm from Illinois and

(22:39):
it was getting cold and dark. So my recruiting trip
to Arizona it was one and done. It really was
the only trip I took. So for me, there was
you know, Illinois, and the other thing is a lot
of people don't know this story. Lou Henson kind of
messed it up. He came to my high school. He
walked around, he made sure that everyone saw him, he
didn't go talk to the principal, he didn't talk to

(23:01):
my high school coach, and then he just exited. He
just exited the building. And I had all these people
coming up to me in between classes, all lou Hanson's here,
lou Hanson's here. And so at the end of the day,
I know with my coach, I said, did you talk
to Louie said no, he didn't come talk to me either,
and he kind of tried to Hollywood us and it
was like, no, bro, it's not no, I'm not impressed you.

(23:22):
And I I wanted to get further away from home
than Illinois. I want to do my own thing. But yeah,
it was definitely a good school. They were playing great
basketball in the late eighties early nineties. But I just
want to do my own thing.

Speaker 4 (23:34):
That's understanding.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
You're in seventeen, eighteen year old kid this of course,
So we started the show today, Corey, and one of
the reasons I wanted to have you on is, you
know the basketball game back in nineteen ninety four ninety five,
you guys were ranked number one going into the season.
After the ninety four season and then after the ninety
five ninety six season, no one even paid attention. Right,
you guys don't nowhere to be found. You go into

(23:57):
the nit, go run through that beat. Allan and I
were sending those guys, and all of a sudden you're
in the top five, top six. I find it a
little similar to what Arizona's going to be going through
now from nowhere to somewhere and then all eyes are
on you. How did you guys handle it? And maybe
you should have handled it differently or do you think well?

Speaker 6 (24:19):
I think a lot of people will give us back
in the nineties credit for having thicker skin, but they
have to realize that there were far less points of
contact between us and the media. There were a couple
of beat writers in Tucson and a couple of national magazines,
and that's all the quote unquote press you had to
put up with. So when they weren't high on us,

(24:40):
it didn't matter because guys like you were writing good
pieces on us and we could open up the local
newspaper and feel good about ourselves. We were surrounded by
fans that wasn't social media, so we weren't drinking the
kool aid. We weren't sensitive to the ups and downs
and the finicky public. There wasn't a gazillion guys with
laptops all having an opinion, and there weren't fans in

(25:03):
boxing you and your cell phone critiquing your game. So
we were and you know, we believed whatever coach said.
So if coach came in on Monday and you guys
are horrible. We need to get better at this, this,
and this, that's how we felt. If coach was like, hey,
these guys are tough, but we can beat them, that's
how we felt. We didn't derive our mentality from anything

(25:23):
outside the program. Well, that's the exact opposite of what's
going on now in twenty twenty five, where everybody has
an opinion, everybody has a cell phone with an Internet connection,
and these coaches are fighting for the sanity of their guys.
They cannot get these guys to put their phones down,
whether they played great or whether they played poorly. It's

(25:44):
a constant battle for the mentality of your players. And
I think that's Arizona's great challenge. Don't start drinking your goal.
Don't start drinking the kool aid. You're not as good
as they say you are, and you're certain not as
bad as they say. You are focused on the guys
in the huddle, and I think coach will agree. You know,
you're gonna be just fine if you can do that.

Speaker 5 (26:02):
Yeah, those extremes are different, different challenges today. Let me
ask you a questioning around that time too. You know,
you have football in deserts form. Were football and basketball
players as the athletes for you guys kind of connected
with Was there a was there a kind of a
joint what was that relationsymmetry?

Speaker 6 (26:22):
Yeah, we had a staff meeting for ESPN about five
or six, about six seven years ago, and I had
to go to Bristol, Connecticut, and I'm standing in line
to walk into the arena and I see Tedy Bruski
and I say, hey, Teddy, how you doing Corny Williams
College basketball? And he looks at me, and he smiles
and he shakes my hands, and I said, I played
in Arizona, and then he tilted his head, and then

(26:42):
I said, I played at Arizona from ninety two to
ninety six. And then he really tilted his head and
he was like oh. I was like, yeah, bro, we
never met. That was just someone over giving crowd because
we're both That was I mean, we were in our own.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
World interest, in our own bubble.

Speaker 6 (26:58):
We would see the football players out at the nightclubs
and the bars, and we'd see them at the frat parties,
and they'd see us. We all walked past each other
for four straight years in the Kale Center with the
weight room and the offices, so we always were around
each other, but we never really interacted with each other. Now,
there were a few football players that I was really
close with and hung out with and played video games with,

(27:19):
but by and large, I don't want to say that
with a rivalry, but we really did have our own click.
If we went to a party and the football players
were there, desert storm taking all the girls, we would
just turn around the leaves. But at the same token,
if they came somewhere and we were being celebrated. They
really didn't fit in. There was no animosity. We were

(27:39):
all wildcats. But man, in terms of social bubbles, we
really didn't hang out. There wasn't a lot of mixing
between the two groups. Our schedules didn't coincide socially. We
didn't really talk to the same girls. We didn't go
to the same parties. It was just two separate worlds.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
Let me just say something real quick. Letters were going
to this party. We too were not getting the girls.
We were the last line, actually the last pick.

Speaker 6 (28:09):
Now, the one time we all bonded together is when
we were off campus. Then we were all wildcats. So
we went to a house party and there was a
couple of the beach sament line in there. We little
basketball players felt safe because we knew we had So
that was that was a time where we bombed up.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
You know.

Speaker 6 (28:26):
There there were some dust ups from time to time
where it was good to have some football players to
get your back.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
So you saw what happened on Monday. Uh, there was
not a surprise to me because November Arizona was fantastic.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
In November.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
What are your impressions of CoA given and what kind
of advice maybe would you give him that, Okay, you
had a great day, but there's gonna be a lot
of days ahead.

Speaker 6 (28:49):
I think the advice of CoA is to keep her
head down. Florida quickly found out that they didn't have
anybody that could guards him, and this young man put
his foot on the game as he didn't shy away.
He took tough shots, he took contested shots. He got
some alues and some lobs. And the thing about talent
is you can't let talent bet in a rhythm. If

(29:11):
you wake sol halftime to try to make an adjunstment,
it's too late. By the time we hit halftime. Cod
Pete knew and believed and proved that he was the
best big man on the floor. So nothing you do
at halftimes is gonna change this kid's attitude. I thought
that that was great mental toughness. I thought it was
great for Tommy and the team to keep using him

(29:31):
and letting him shine. And he didn't back away from it.
He didn't try to sit in. He stood out. Now,
is that going to continue? Coach will tell you no,
it's not. Every coach worth his salt will devise a
way to slow this young man down. This is his
first go around in college basketball. He's going to see
every sort of defensive scheme to take away his strengths,

(29:51):
and he's gonna have to rely on his teammates to
help him through that. No one's gonna sit around and
watch the Cod Peach Show anymore. It was on TNT
Grand Open Monday, nine thirty points. Everybody saw it. Everybody's
talking about it. To let him walk into your building
and do the same thing to you, it's not an option.
So does he have another level to his game? Does

(30:12):
he have other tools in his toolbox? These are the
things we'll all find out as he's gonna be the
lightning rod for most of the attention. But Arizona left
a lot of meat on the ball, and there were
a lot of guys who could do more from a
production standpoint, but they didn't have to because the freshman
gave you thirty and seven. So my advice to him,

(30:33):
keep your head down. It's gonna be up and down.
There's a flavor of the month right now. But you
got to be ready to adjust because good coaches and
good teams are gonna make you adjust.

Speaker 5 (30:44):
Well, yeah, there's no question because you know, and coach
Bloyd did a wonderful job of getting him the ball
in the middle going going downhill, So you really couldn't
help defense, couldn't come over and just kind of show
itself early. Right, But you know, definitely you're right Corey
on that is is that you know there's going to
force them to make a jump shot overhand, and you're

(31:04):
not just going to see the man demand all the time.
You're going to start to see some zones and that
type of stuff which will force the.

Speaker 4 (31:12):
He'll have to beat you, learning to beat you a
different different way.

Speaker 5 (31:16):
But you know, as well as with all the other freshmen,
there's just such a growth process left for that entire
team in so many different areas.

Speaker 4 (31:24):
And that's the one thing.

Speaker 5 (31:25):
You're playing big time teams, but in the middle of
things in practice, you got to still keep working on
little things to get better.

Speaker 4 (31:31):
Yeah, so that in February you've got more tools in
the kid.

Speaker 6 (31:35):
Yeah, coach, you know, it's it's harder to teach after
a win than it is after a loss. And that's
just the nature of the game. Yeah, we won, and
now coaches yelling at me and showing me film about
a play on this or a defense of the Simon
I Blue. But we won. And that's the mentality of
eighteen nineteen twenty year old young men, and it's never

(31:57):
going to change. And you don't want to have to
lose to learn a lot, but Arizona can can try
to improve after a good win.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
It's funny because I think Jason Rainey said this, I
don't know twenty some years ago with Luke. You know,
he was on the bench with coming off the bench
and he says, there's no other place like Arizona. We
went by forty two and lut still jumps on her ass.

Speaker 6 (32:15):
Yeah. Yeah, you come out of film session like did
I play that bad? And like I almost felt like
he told the managers go into that tape and find
five defensive areas by Corey. Yeah, I know he had
thirteen and six and didn't miss a shot, but I
needed And he kept your head small the whole time
you were there. And then once you became an upper

(32:36):
classman and you had some consistency about you, then you
saw the trust and he let you play through your
mistakes and everything turned out all right. But those first
couple of years, you never had a good game.

Speaker 14 (32:48):
At Arizona.

Speaker 6 (32:49):
I don't care what you did. Coach would find something
to keep you motivated and to keep you humble, you know.

Speaker 5 (32:57):
Yeah, well that the humility piece in town, you know,
and in balance is what allows you to keep getting
better and not wasting days to get better. And one
thing with the young Pete Fla, with all the athletes
in his family, you know everybody's still watching you. You know,
there's enough messages from people about keeping your head. He might,
you know, from that standpoint, he certainly doesn't, you know,

(33:21):
pound his chest and celebrate everything. And I think that's
some of the older folks in his family saying, just
cool kid.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
If I could real quick, Cordy, because we've got maybe
a minute or so. There's not any real comps for Cola,
but let me throw these maybe three people. I think
he's kind of like a Pete Williams back in the day,
where he can get the rebounds, do a lot of
stuff physically, maybe Ben Davis in terms of his build.
And he's a tough dude. And I'm gonna throw a
weird one at you, Ray Ohs with that ten twelve

(33:50):
foot jumper.

Speaker 6 (33:53):
I saw Derek Williams when when he started getting the
lobs and the transition dunks, and when he took the
defender on his chest and the kid went up for
the skyhook and he just jumped up and blocked it.
I saw athleticism. I saw unbelievable strength for somebody who's
only a freshman. And the way he attached the rim

(34:14):
when he caught the one handed lob and put it down.
Those are the electrifying plays that Derek Williams used to
make that used to propel his team. I mean, the
bench is jumping up and down. The guys on the court.
If they weren't believing, man, we're believing now. Like he
had that electric energy, that explosiveness. Is he an undersized for?
I think he is. I think he's an undersized for.

(34:35):
That's going to be a headache for a lot of coaches.
I think around the rim, he's physical, he's tough, he
can play post defense. He's got a better jump shot
than Derek Williams had to say. We all saw the
game that Derek Williams had against Duke. That was an
amazing shooting display against Duke. So you know, give it
to Arizona to have another superstar athletic power forward and

(34:57):
all those names you mentioned were great names, but the
dunks and the block those are the two plays that
made me say, wow, it's been a while since we've
had somebody at the four that does it like this.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
Yeah, okay, what's your first assignment or your next assignment?
Because we've got to go here.

Speaker 6 (35:16):
I'm up the street. I got Arizona State taking on
a Gonzaga next Friday night. So wells Fargo or Desert
Financial I'm sorry, Desert Financial Arena.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
Cool, We'll have a good season Friday night.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
We'll talk to you a few times this year, So
good luck the rest of the way.

Speaker 3 (35:32):
Sounds great talk Forrty Williams.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
Good stuff, good stuff. Let's take a break and maybe
take some calls. If you're an Arizona men's basketball fan,
you know it's been successful for nearly forty years. Now
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(35:57):
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email media Steve dot RIVERA ninety five at gmail dot com.

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Speaker 15 (39:37):
Breaking down all the apsys at ohs. This is I
On the Ball with Steve Rivera on Block Sports fourteen
fifty eight.

Speaker 3 (39:47):
Hey, welcome back to WY on the Ball hero on
Fox Sports fourteen fifty m. Steve Rivera, your j John
and your Ray got it right? Hey, Jay? How long
were you a coach head coach head coach?

Speaker 5 (39:59):
Well overall college thirty one years and then prior to
college they had three years.

Speaker 4 (40:04):
In high school.

Speaker 3 (40:05):
Do you miss it?

Speaker 5 (40:06):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (40:07):
You always miss it?

Speaker 2 (40:07):
Yeah, what do you miss the most?

Speaker 4 (40:11):
Again, what do you miss the most? You get the
interaction with the young man.

Speaker 5 (40:14):
I mean, it's uh that that you miss because you
know it's a window of time when you know, I've
said this many times. I always talk about what I
called the Aha moment is these you know, the kids
come to get away from home for the first time
and they're learning all those types of things. You're living
in a dorm and there's you know, twenty four to
seven chaos, those yeah, you know, those those kinds of things,

(40:35):
and then the expectations you don't necessarily understand. Many of
the kids don't understand what it's like, and you know,
and then all of a sudden, you go through practice
and come in your office and go, coach, I don't
I don't know how much I'm gonna play. Yeah, you know,
and so let's talk about that. Is that a you

(40:55):
issue or is that an US issue?

Speaker 4 (40:58):
Yeah? Okay? And so what you got?

Speaker 5 (41:00):
And then a little while later, you know, come, you know,
as a coach, I you know, first of all, I'm sorry,
I'm not going to start. You know, it's like, I'm
not sure I'm much going to play coach what And
then you know, then what's my role? And then you
now you have them because it's like, what do you mean?

Speaker 4 (41:15):
Which? So whose job is it to set a role?
Is it us to you or is it you to
the coach? You know?

Speaker 5 (41:23):
And so you know, that's when you start to get
the kids to listen, Okay, well what do I got
to do? And so it's just's and then when you
get you know, someone that thinks that way, and they
kind of understand.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
You know, sometimes it takes a little while. You know,
I can.

Speaker 5 (41:37):
Remember kids when I'm here at the U of A
that after three games, they're back in the phone ready
to transfer. Remember I'm having a conversation with them, Well,
when did you tell me you were one and done?
I thought you wanted to come here, and you know,
so what are we doing here?

Speaker 6 (41:50):
Right?

Speaker 2 (41:50):
You know in the books that I've written, I've heard
that a few times that not too soon after getting
here and the season started and they want it out,
and then they realized they realize it's going to be
okay eventually, right, you know, because you're with Loot, it
was the process you had to kind of make your mark,
make your market and move up. You're not a Sean Elliott,
so you got to find your way.

Speaker 4 (42:10):
Well, once you tart take the issue.

Speaker 5 (42:14):
Many times practices when you are you're a dominant one
or two guys on a on a high school team,
you don't.

Speaker 4 (42:20):
Take practice serious.

Speaker 5 (42:21):
Yeah okay, And so once you start to realize that
practice is serious and competitive and you feel good that
you're getting better, well that's some momentum changes within you,
Like I'm getting okay, I am getting better. I can
feel it, you know, and and I'm getting smarter. And
then that's that piece like there's no playbook for how
does the game slow down?

Speaker 4 (42:40):
It just does over time, and and.

Speaker 5 (42:43):
Then and then but again, then you realize that I'm better,
and uh, you know that's when you say to the
older kid, well, will you please help that freshman down there,
because he's where you were two years ago.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
He has no idea, right, right?

Speaker 2 (42:52):
So do you how many kids you think you coached
Oregon or wherever an overall.

Speaker 3 (42:59):
As a head coach.

Speaker 4 (43:00):
I was a head coach.

Speaker 5 (43:01):
I mean maybe seventy well yeah, maybe, I mean six
years a head coach and you get some kids that
are turning over, so maybe there's overall, maybe.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
How many times you think you were challenged? Challenge where
it's almost like you know what the hell.

Speaker 5 (43:13):
Well, challenge always comes in a different way, you know.
Is it somebody who's just overt and is going to
be you know, loud or like that, or is somebody
just going to be quiet and strict into a shell.
You know, I just know the misery loves company, and
so you know, if you can find somebody, if you

(43:34):
have somebody that's unhappy, they're typically trying to bring somebody
with them, Yeah, so that they can they can share things.

Speaker 4 (43:39):
And again it's it's.

Speaker 5 (43:43):
You have to be consistent about what you do and
what you profess, and and then you also have some
have to have some places where you can measure, okay,
and that has to be consistent. So that's like, okay,
what is coach looking for? Well, coach is looking for
these things. So these are statistical things and you show
you the video other things. So along the way things
sit and stick with with what your principles are as

(44:05):
a program. If you don't have those kind of principles,
I mean, the kids are sitting in the dorm room
in their apartment and I go, I don't understand what
coach wants.

Speaker 4 (44:12):
And someone says, well, what he's looking for is this because.

Speaker 5 (44:15):
He's and then you get then you have those things
that the kids kind of.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Help each other, you know, you know, because today's world
is different. I mean, you just missed the difference, right,
given the nil stuff, and now they're making money, unheard
of money, and not that they're making as much as
the coach, but they're making money that you see, I
know what I'm doing, Coach just and I'm making a
lot of money.

Speaker 5 (44:37):
Well to your point and going back to the you know,
a quicker and more succinct answer to what you said.
These relationships with the players are the ones that I miss.
That's what I miss, right, because I still believe that
when a young man's soul, they want to get to
a highest level. Okay, Now, how does the path? Okay,
some people take a distracted path, you know, other people

(44:58):
are focused within the path. Where with all the people
talking to him, you know, Corey talked about it, with
all the people talking to him, can you sift through
the noise and stay and stay on a certain path,
you know, moving forward?

Speaker 3 (45:10):
That takes a special player too.

Speaker 5 (45:11):
I mean that you you know, someone who has been
used to listen instead of just you know, talking. But
I do think what's difficult, and I think you've a
and some of the bigger programs are finding a little
bit of a blueprint if you can retain if you're
a successful program, and you can retain older players when

(45:31):
you get your grouping coming in, if you have a
new players, there's at least some people who know what's
going on. They noticed, Okay, so there's a little bit
of a balance even though it's maybe short term versus
freshman senior like it used to be when you have
some of these mid level programs, okay, and you know
they have a roster that they do well, but then

(45:51):
everybody disperses. Well, now you get ten new people, and
now everybody is a peacock okay, and so you you're
gonna you're going to get some friction along the way
just trying to find, you know, who we are as
a team and how can we even co exist.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
Yeah, the molding of the team is very difficult, I mean,
because you have to do now especially I was just
thinking about this and I don't know why, Henry Steele.

Speaker 3 (46:15):
Does that name sound familiar? Henry Steele? Did you ever
watch One on one with.

Speaker 4 (46:19):
With Robbie Benson a thousand years ago?

Speaker 3 (46:21):
Two thousand years ago?

Speaker 2 (46:22):
And the stuff they had on the show and the
tutors and the jobs and the things have changed a
ton That was like seventy five.

Speaker 4 (46:31):
That was I was in high school, remember that that was?

Speaker 3 (46:33):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Yeah, you know this cranky kid who no one believed
in it and then he won the games from so.

Speaker 5 (46:38):
Yeah, but it's still at the core, as like I said,
young people want to be good.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
They want to be coach.

Speaker 5 (46:45):
They want to be coached and they want to be good,
and there is it does help. It does help that
process a little bit when there's a hierarchy, so you
kind of see where you fit. Yeah, but you know,
on the on the back end, because of because of
the July I open opening up the windows in July
to work, to practice and do some things you hopefully
as a coach you can get some of those things

(47:08):
done there where at least everybody has an idea when
you go home for a couple of weeks in August
that okay, this is how things are going to work,
you know, and I kind of grow your team a
little bit.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
Okay, but it is it's wild, you know, in frontier.

Speaker 5 (47:25):
It's a new frontier because because what doesn't stop.

Speaker 4 (47:28):
You know.

Speaker 5 (47:28):
I was talking to College Basketball Power for College Basketball
System the other day and talking about so and so,
and I asked him, I said, what do you guys,
what's what are you doing with this with this young man?
He goes, well, we're going to read shirt him. And
I go, really, okay, that was that's pretty high end player.
He says, well, it's you know, he's got hurt, it's
behind blah blah blah. I said, well you worried about

(47:50):
He said, well, we've already signed another letter in another
nil deal for next year.

Speaker 4 (47:54):
So those things are going on whether you're playing or not.
You know.

Speaker 5 (47:59):
So somebody is a good game and then here comes
to the agent during the middle of the season, coming
in in December and saying, you know, we need to
re up this thing, negotiate, you know, and and uh,
those are some of the things that you hear more
football coaches say, I'm not talking about this stuff, yees season, sure,
but it's it's there, it's real.

Speaker 4 (48:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
Well, let me say, I don't know if you saw
this ray being you know, on the on the old
Twitter world. Uh though, there's a tweet about Bruce James
right saying that, oh, he didn't do anything, And I'm
thinking he's never intended to do anything. He's gonna red
shirt at the best. He's not here for this specifically.
He wants to be a call student, wants to learn
more and be better at this. So the public's perception

(48:38):
of what his situation is. Just last week, I was
in Vegas and people were talking about was he gonna
play it? I'm thinking he probably won't play it all
this year, So well he's no, he's not, He's not,
He's not.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
He's got to get better, you know.

Speaker 7 (48:49):
Yeah, And I mean I think even coming in like
that was the big that was the big story of
him coming in.

Speaker 4 (48:53):
You know.

Speaker 7 (48:53):
It's like they everybody knew that he wasn't gonna try
or he wasn't trying to be a one and done,
you know what I mean. And even I think even
Bron said it too, like a part where it's like
he just wants to enjoy college. You know, they trust,
they trust the process of you know, developing him and
all that good stuff.

Speaker 5 (49:08):
So I mean, yeah, oh what I do know is
from my from my time at Cal when when uh,
when Brownie was at was at USC and following, I
mean with the pressure that that young man was under,
you know, and everything the expectations and how he actually
managed it, you know, the same with the coaching staff.

(49:29):
I mean, it was it was it was wild. Yeah,
you know you know what I'm I was down at
the game and col plated sc and saw that. And
then when when USC came to Cal, I mean, so
Bron James is sitting courtside, you know, and he's he's
two steps away from the USC bench. I mean, there's
a whole lot of you know, additional drama going on there.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
Sure short.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
In fact, I want to throw this one at you too,
because you were here, Kendrea, Andy Lopez Rubio. There probably
be another player or coach I'm missing. They're happy they're
going out of it. I mean, given the circumstances of today.

Speaker 4 (50:02):
Well, you know you I will say this.

Speaker 5 (50:06):
You know, those guys all had a Hall of Fame careers,
so you okay, what else can I do?

Speaker 4 (50:12):
So and that type of thing.

Speaker 5 (50:14):
And that's when you see some of the basketball coaches
that you know that walk away. We've made my money,
We've done stuff. I don't want to. I'm not in
this transaction world. That's not me, you know. But you know,
if you're forty eight and you got us, you know,
I got years to work. I'm gonna have to figure
it out because this is you know, I can leave
the whole thing. But you're saying this is not changing.

(50:35):
It's not changing, and then I have to change to accommodate.
I mean, you've seen I mean I use this as
an example, and it's it's like Jeff Linder and I
are good friends because I just know and respect what
he's done.

Speaker 4 (50:44):
He did a great job nor the Colorado.

Speaker 5 (50:46):
Okay, he did a great job at Wyoming, and he's
good buddies Grant McCastle and they used to coach together
in the Juco in Texas and Grandam Castle and says, so,
why don't you come here and be my assistant.

Speaker 4 (50:57):
I'll pay you X.

Speaker 5 (50:58):
And he's done well Wyoming and he's like, you know,
you know what I'm done.

Speaker 4 (51:02):
I'm coming. I'll go there. I'll be an assistant.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
But yeah, it's always good to be the vice president.
Sometimes we gotta go. We'll take there. Gonna have some
breaking news for us.

Speaker 4 (51:11):
Yes, cool,